" Turning to me, he said:
"Many a time within the last few months have I called to mind the
lightness with which I laughed away your fears for my safety, when I
left home for the city. O! that I had listened to your friendly warning,
and followed the path which you pointed out for me. When I first came to
the great city, I was charmed with the novelty of its never-ceasing
scenes of amusement and pleasure. I began by mingling with company, and
participating in amusements, which, to say the least of them, were
questionable; and I soon found my salary inadequate to meet my fast
increasing wants for money; and, as many an unfortunate youth has done
before, I began the vice of gambling with the hope of being one of the
lucky ones. My tempters, no doubt, understood their business, and at
first allowed me to win from them considerable sums of money; till,
elated with my success, I began playing for higher stakes, and when I
lost them, I grew desperate, and it was then that I began adding the sin
of theft to the no less heinous one of gambling. But it is no use now to
talk of the past; my character is blasted, and all I wish is to die and
hide my guild in the grave, and yet I am ill-prepared to die.
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